Now, the 31-year-old will return to Arizona with his fiancée and their 3-month-old son, Boomer, and settle into fatherhood. “Phelps got the gold”, said Friedman after a gap of a few seconds. In 2008, Michael set another record and earned another gold in this event.
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He finished second in his semi-final to qualify fifth fastest for Friday’s final.
Katie Ledecky obliterated the field and her own world record in winning the 800m freestyle in 8min 04.79sec.
She finished nearly half a length in front of her closest rivals, silver medallist Jazz Carlin of Britain (8:16.17) and bronze medallist Boglarka Kapas of Hungary (8:16.37).
Schooling reached two rare feats – he was one of the few to actually beat Phelps, and he secured the first Olympic gold medal win for his country.
And his win in the 200-meters means the U.S. has won the event six times in a row dating to 1996 in Atlanta. Canada’s Hilary Caldwell won the bronze medal.
For Team USA, the gold didn’t stop flowing there. Lochte recently said that if Phelps weren’t around, “I guess you could say, I’d be the Michael Phelps of swimming”.
American Anthony Ervin won gold in the men’s 50m free – 16 years after tying for gold in the same event in Sydney with teammate Gary Hall jr.
After his race, Ervin slapped the water – hard – with a heavily tattooed arm. “Done. [South African co-silver medallist] Chad [Le Clos] asked me in the award area and the Dwyers were chanting ‘four more years”.
“Doing the hundred back and having a good time in that helped me to realize that I could do better in the 200 back than I did at trials”. He will next swim the 100 fly Friday night, and the medley relay on Saturday.
Phelps in second touched the wall in the exact same time as rivals Chad Le Clos of South Africa and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh.
“It is the craziest race maybe in swimming history”, said fellow silver medalist Cseh.
That wasn’t the case with his life after London, or even the way Phelps approached the Games themselves.
If Phelps was disappointed with his non-gold medal, it did not show.
Le Clos may not have caught the American anyway, but that bad habit may have cost him a medal in the end.
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You would think Michael Phelps has become accustomed to accepting Olympic gold medals.
